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Symantec Updates Cause Chaos in China
Posted by
CowboyNeal
on Sat May 19, 2007 11:24 AM
from the trust-in-trust dept.
from the trust-in-trust dept.
Hello Kitty writes "According to Computerworld, a signature update to Symantec's anti-virus software has knocked out thousands of Chinese PCs. Apparently the latest update for the AV component of the various Norton packages mistook two system files in the Chinese edition of Windows XP SP2 for the 'Backdoor.Haxdoor' trojan. Piracy issues may complicate recovery, since once the updates are installed Symantec says the only hope for reviving an affected system is to re-copy the affected DLLs from the Windows restore disks. Everyone has their official restore disks handy, right?"
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Symantec Updates Cause Chaos in China
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Probably not intentional (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://markbyers.com/ | Last Journal: Monday July 24 2006, @12:54PM)
Do you want to PAY for that level of stupidity? (Score:5, Insightful)
But to not test against the core files of the operating system you KNOW they will be installed upon?
And people pay an annual subscription fee for that kind of "service".
The pirates have the disks. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fascinating. So you are floating the possibility that this was PLANNED? And what possible reason could Symantic have for annoying their customers this much?
The "pirates" will have every CD and diskette ever made readily available to them.
The only people who won't have the disks are the home users who have been spending their lives doing things other than storing and tracking everything that ever touched their computer.
But they've been PAYING for the regular updates to PROTECT them from "problems".
Not to mention that many OEM's don't provide the right disks. You get a "recovery" CD which will reformat your box and re-install all the software TO THE CONDITION YOU ORIGINALLY RECEIVED THE BOX.
Too bad about all your files and pictures and such.
Still waiting on the reasons why Symantec would do plan this and test it.
Yes. (Score:4, Informative)
Yes. If they need help I'm sure that VMWare will be happy to provide them some expertise (seeing as how they seem to be sorely lacking it). And than is JUST FOR INSTALLING THE PATCH.
And you don't need to test "other intermediate patched up versions".
This is a virus scanner. Right?
So they only need to test against the various released versions of the files. All they need is a set of DIRECTORIES with the files to be scanned in them.
So one box could have ALL the various patches for that system. Based upon the variances in the files. One box for the US release. One box for the Spanish release. Etc.
And as I said, they don't have to be physical boxes. VMWare can help out a whole lot in that regard.
It's called "Computer SCIENCE" for a reason.
Its not as bad as we think! (Score:2, Funny)
(http://people.chem.umass.edu/jhardy/)
How Long (Score:5, Insightful)
Pre-pwned windows (Score:2, Funny)
(http://rippl.es/)
Hypocrisy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hypocrisy (Score:5, Funny)
Blue Screen Of Effection (Score:2)
And Ballmer tells Xiang... (Score:1)
(http://www.osgeek.blogspot.com/)
Radical change imminent (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Radical change imminent (Score:4, Interesting)
Yes, that did happen, during the Great Leap Forward, about 40 years ago. These days provincial governments still bullshit about economic growth statistics, but not so grievously.
And of course it's not just a communists who try to save face and walk into disaster. "Mission Accomplished!"
Time for a Change (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.nodecaf.net/blog)
Now, this problem has actually highlighted a bigger problem; that Windows is Western software controlled by Western interests. Even the ancillary software you need to run Windows effectively (read: anti-virus) is from third parties in the West who obviously wouldn't necessarily have the desires of the Chinese government in mind. Now, at best I can see the Chinese government is going to realize that their reliance on Western anti-virus solutions may be a flawed dependency and they will write their own Chinese-specific AV solution. At worst... this might just highlight to the Chinese government how vulnerable they are to a "cyber attack", either malicious or accidental that could potentially cripple them.
Microsoft might want to start "spinning", and quick. Chinese people are well aware there are better solutions out there than Windows for an operating system. It's only a matter of time before someone in power starts talking about "Red Flag Linux" and how it's openness can help prevent problems exactly like this... then it's all over for Microsoft in that market.
Yes, I realize the pirated Windows market is huge in China as well... but it's still a massive market for Microsoft to lose because of the accidental actions of one of their "trusted third parties".
Woe is Symantec (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.threesquirrels.com/)
They worked, they worked well, and I could see how they helped me.
Somewhere along the line though they became first large, then irritating, then expensive to keep updated (pay for virus signature updates?), then finally began actually damaging systems.
And somewhere along the line I stopped buying their products, installing their products, and recommending their products.
I've come to view Microsoft the same way. Between excessive DRM, excessive hardware demands, and a generally customer hostile attitude I find it hard to think that I would ever move to a Vista machine. Thus far Windows 2000 still does everything that I need with a lot less hassle.
Someday though I will need to upgrade. The question is what will fill the gap? Linux still isn't there, nor are most Open Source replacements for common Microsoft and Adobe applications.
Is there a company that can step in with a viable replacement for Photoshop or MS Office? Can OpenOffice or GIMP make the final leap to become a reasonable and reliable alternative to those tools? I don't want something that sort of does everything that Photoshop does, I want a professional tool that does everything, and does it equally well.
The door is open, we're just waiting someone to step through.
Re:Woe is Symantec (Score:5, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Thursday September 30 2004, @01:33AM)
Since then, I've seen machines crippled by malfunctioning Symantec rootkits. Yes -- I refer to them as rootkits since they have made un-installation impossible in some cases. For example, their uninstall program refuses to run in safe mode.
man I hate it being bundled (Score:1)
Re:man I hate it being bundled (Score:5, Insightful)
Good lord! And how exactly do you manage THAT? The thing is impossible to delete - at least for the layman...
Symantec updates have caused problems before. (Score:2)
(http://threeseas.net/ | Last Journal: Friday January 18 2002, @01:44PM)
neither of which had anything to do with piracy issues, but rather doing things to my at work system that broke and even removed other legal software. Adobe is guilty of this too.
What this really means? Well for symantec to effect pirated systems would mean that symantec software was also pirated (which just happens to run on Windows system). Because this is a symantec problem more then it is a windows problem..... I'd imagine users of symantec will better question the risk of using risk prevention software. And Pirates are less likely to use it, leaving the effected to be less pirates and more honest users.
A good way to kill pirates (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Monday October 29, @07:20AM)
In Soviet China... (Score:1, Interesting)
(http://www.devinmoore.com/ | Last Journal: Thursday May 24, @06:16AM)
ugh - Norton? (Score:1)
(http://omgponi.es/ | Last Journal: Wednesday November 30 2005, @08:40AM)
At work we installed it on our CAD machines - and it totally killed the performance. We eventually switched to Panda, and have been really impressed. Saying that, Panda still has those bloody annoying popups telling the user it's doing something.
I wish the applications would just DO it, rather than constantly telling users about what they're abouts to do.
Was the anti virus s/w also pirated? (Score:1)
Original install discs? (Score:5, Insightful)
The best you can hope for now is that your machine allowed you to make a set of full system restore discs when you got it. Some of those will allow you to restore individual files, but many of these utilities just re-image your system drive, so you lose everything on there that was installed since the machine was new (at least, anything on the boot partition).
I'd say this is probably MORE destructive to people with legitimate copies, who probably just have such images. The pirates are more likely to have install CDs.
Slashdot idiocy (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://telebody.com | Last Journal: Tuesday July 30 2002, @07:28AM)
Business Partnerships (Score:1)
dealextreme? (Score:1)
Only problem is (Score:5, Interesting)
the oem versions (win98, winxp, winxp) I bought at best buy and other places, my only option is to wipe everything and reinstall.
So, I would be screwed on the machines where I am a legitimate paying customer, and hunky dory on the machines where I was pirating.
What if they're right? (Score:1, Interesting)
What if they weren't really false alarms, and there really is a back-door in those DLLs? Isn't it a little suspicious that only the Chinese version was affected? Obviously what happened is that someone [nsa.gov] convinced Microsoft to add a back door into the Chinese version, and then, since Symantec didn't test against the Chinese version of windows, it wasn't on Symantec's white list.
[removes tin-foil hat]
Serves them right... (Score:2)
Symantec got it kind of right... (Score:1)
Windows is a virus [ahajokes.com], but the proper name would not be Backdoor.Haxdoor... the files should have been detected as W32.Backdoor.MSoft.Windows, but it shouldn't have detected just two DLLs, the whole OS, the whole C:\WINNT and C:\WINDOWS directories. And the proper fix isn't to merely delete the files, the AV software needs to either patch the machine to turn it into a Mac and install OS X... or put Linux/any real OS on it.
Is it just me... (Score:5, Funny)
take conroll (Score:1)
Nortons down the drain (Score:1)
Antiviruses are scam (Score:2)
Second - once I tried testing several known AVs with some fresh dialers and trojans I've had (mostly as email attachments). Not a single one(!) has been detected by AVG, Avast, and Kaspersky.
All they do is detecting irrelevant (in the age of Internet) old "viruses", wasting your resources, and through occasional fuckups like this one doing real damage. Good thing if your AV is at least free one.
Of course, (Score:3, Insightful)
Lucky me and my machines. (Score:1)
(http://www.underconstruction.com/)
Except some of the computers have an annoying banner popping up from the bottom-right corner of screen states "You possibly are a victim of privated software". I wish Norton would have taken this banner a malware.
testing is expensive... (Score:1)
Paid Software against Piracy? (Score:1)
Hmm... (Score:1)
(http://darkcyclone0.tripod.com/snyktn.html | Last Journal: Thursday August 03 2006, @02:55PM)
The Norton Virus (Score:1)
(http://www.txrxnetworking.com/nate/)
Your computer has been infected with the Norton Anti-Virus Virus
There was an error removing this virus, please contact technical support
with your license key, windows recover disk, and proof of purchise.
System halted.
There was an error loading Windows XP, if this is the first time you have seen....
And shortly afterward (Score:3, Funny)
(http://ermarian.net/)
To: gates@microsoft.com
CC: genuine-advantage@microsoft.com
Subject: Mission Accomplished
Hi Bill,
Done as requested. That will be one billion; pleasure doing business with you.
-John
Great news (Score:1)
(Last Journal: Thursday December 09 2004, @09:16PM)
No sympathy for pirates (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, for all of those who were running a legitimate version of Windows and a legitimate version of Norton who were affected by this problem (probably a small percentage of all systems actually affected..) it really does suck.. and there are two sources of fault, here:
1) MS. Aren't critical OS files supposed to be protected, such that they can't be unwillingly be deleted or modified? Maybe this is part of the reason why MS didn't want AV vendors to have kernel mode access to Vista..
2) Norton (duh). How they could manage to screw this up so badly boggles the mind.
as opposed to the updates here in the states? (Score:1)
F-Secure too (Score:2)
Pegasus Email Client Also Affected (Score:1)
Re:no sympathy (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:no sympathy (Score:4, Funny)
(http://www.myspace.com/imkiddingiswear)
Re:no sympathy (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
1. "Damn, my pirated copy stopped working"
"You should have bought a real copy"
"Would that have helped?"
"No."
2. ???
3. Piracy problem solved
Re:no sympathy (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh really? And how many Americans have sued MS, despite billions of dollars in damage for lost time and data due to their software not working as advertised over the last 25 years?
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:2, Insightful)
(http://rippl.es/)
Re:Be careful what you wish for... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://bakahoushi.deviantart.com/)
Change creates unknown circumstances.
People often have an innate fear of the unknown.
Fear leads to anger.
Anger leads to hate.
Hate leads to the Darkside.
Therefore, Chinese workers using Linux would cause an influx of Sith who would surely wipe us out. Just follow basic logic.
Re:no sympathy (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.pykota.com/)
Expressing as much stupidity in only 8 words certainly is a world record.
What next ? You've got no sympathy for blacks, blonds, left-handed or bue-eyed people ?
Racism at its best !
Re:windows CDs (Score:2)
(http://sourceforge.net/projects/mobilesudoku)
Bob
Re:In [un]Related News... (Score:1)
(http://www.xs4all.nl/~dverbeek)
Symantec is showing it's gratitude to Microsoft for enabling their business model on Microsoft designed weaknesses.
One hell of a way to root out the pirated copies of Windows...
Re:windows CDs (Score:2, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Saturday November 10, @04:40AM)
I saw it as a travesty when the computer industry offloaded millions of systems between '94 and '00 with little or no factory backup disks. I was even less amused when companies began shipping restoration image disks which only worked if the (usually flawed) software on the disk determined that the system needed to be restored--and usually did so without any consideration paid to settings which had been customized by the user after the system was shipped.
Re:Pity the poor choices of consumers... and pirat (Score:2)
Re:Pity the poor choices of consumers... and pirat (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Sunday November 06 2005, @05:24PM)
Is all this Symantec's fault for not protecting Monkeysoft better?
If you replace "common" with "most vulnerable", your statement makes sense.
Re:symantec (Score:2)
This update caused many PCs and servers to stop dead, especially in company network environments.
Until today, the only thing the Norman company has been able to come up with is a series of patches that are to be manually installed, and a recommendation to turn off the on-access scanner.
Re:'The cure is worse than the disease'... (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Friday January 03 2003, @03:39PM)
a better analogy would be
Buying a Symantec product to protect your Windows PC is like hiring a suicide bomber to be your bodyguard.
it protects you, and blows you and everyone around you to pieces in the same run!
Re:no sympathy (Score:1)
(http://www.stanford.edu/~jjkchen)
Re:no sympathy (Score:2)
(http://slashdot.org/~Vicissidude/journal/)
No sympathy for the Chinese since 90% of the software they use is pirated.
No sympathy for Microsoft when it allows the deletion of a couple files which can cause a BSOD.
No sympathy for Symantec that turns out a shitty update that targets files that it shouldn't kill.
About the only people I can feel sorry for are the 10% of Chinese that actually spent the money to buy legitimate copies of the software.
Re:no sympathy (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.dhiren.za.net/)
Back when that story was making news, there was a lot of commentry here on
Note to self (Score:2)
(http://symbolset.blogspot.com/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 26, @11:53PM)